Nile Kinnick

Football Player

• Born: July 9, 1918
• Birthplace: Adel, Iowa
• Died: June 2, 1943
• Place of death: Gulf of Paria, near Venezuela

Sport: Football

Early Life

Nile Clarke Kinnick, Jr., began and ended his life during wartime. He was born in Adel, Iowa, on July 9, 1918, shortly before World War I ended; he died serving his country in World War II. He was the son of Nile Kinnick and Frances Clarke, farmers who were devoted to the teachings of Christian Science. His maternal grandfather, George W. Clarke, had served as governor of Iowa from 1912 to 1916. He had two younger brothers, Ben and George.

Nile began showing athletic prowess at a young age. When he was in the eighth grade, he caught balls thrown by a hard-throwing pitcher his own age from a neighboring town who was named Bob Feller—a future baseball hall of famer. As a sophomore at Adel High School, Nile led the football team to an unbeaten season and then scored 485 points for the basketball team. He was also, it became apparent to his family and friends, an unusually sensitive boy.

The Road to Excellence

Nile came of age during the tough Depression years of the 1930’s, which hit midwestern farmers such as his parents especially hard. In 1934, deteriorating farm conditions forced his family off its farm and into nearby Omaha, Nebraska, where his father worked for the Federal Land Bank. Meanwhile, at Omaha’s Benson High School, Nile earned all-state honors in both football and basketball and graduated as a straight-A student. He was a classic example of what would later be a scholar-athlete in college.

Torn between choosing the University of Iowa or the University of Minnesota after high school, he settled on Iowa. There he took up football, basketball, and baseball, but he eventually decided to concentrate on football and his studies. “The athlete,” he wrote in his diary before his junior season,

learns to evaluate—to evaluate between athletics and studies, between playing for fun and playing as a business, between playing clean and playing dirty, between being conventional and being true to one’s convictions. He is facing the identical conditions which will confront him after college… . But how many football players realize this?

The Emerging Champion

When Nile joined Iowa’s varsity football team in 1937, the school had won only six games in the Western Conference (later the Big Ten) since 1930. Under first-year coach Irl Tubbs, the 1937 squad failed to improve, winning only one of its eight games. Nile himself had an outstanding season, however, making the all-Western Conference team. He could run, pass, punt, and drop-kick field goals with facility.

During the 1938 season, he was hobbled with what was probably a broken ankle, and the team again finished with only 1 win, plus 1 tie and 7 losses. As a practicing Christian Scientist, he would not allow his ankle to be examined or treated by medical personnel. Only his teammates could see him wince in pain during each of his 41 punts. Despite his injury, his 41.1-yard average ranked him fourth in the nation in punting.

Continuing the Story

In 1939, everything finally came together for Nile on the football field, and he enjoyed a season that would later become legendary. Iowa’s new coach, Eddie Anderson, had coached Holy Cross to a 47-7-4 record in six seasons, and he had been captain of Notre Dame’s team under fabled coach Knute Rockne. Nile later recalled that Iowa had “lost so many games my first two years we just sort of got used to it. Dr. Anderson gave us that intensity we needed to win.” Anderson also brought with him backfield coach Frank Carideo, an all-American quarterback under Rockne. Also skilled in punting and drop-kicking, Carideo worked with Nile on kicking before and after practices.

After sitting on the bench for part of Iowa’s 41-0 opening-day win over South Dakota, Nile played all sixty minutes in every game that followed and became known as the Ironman. When Iowa defeated Notre Dame, 7-6, in 1939, he played a game that many consider his signature performance. After Nile switched to right halfback from his usual left halfback spot for one play, the sterling Notre Dame defense was caught unprepared, and he ran for Iowa’s game-winning touchdown.

Iowa finished the 1939 season ranked ninth in the Associated Press poll with a 6-1-1 record. Nile had played a role in 16 of the team’s 19 touchdowns, passing for 11 and rushing for 5. Thanks to his kicking chores, he had accounted for 107 of the team’s 130 points on the season, and he played 402 of a possible 480 minutes.

In addition to his success on the gridiron, Nile was elected senior-class president. When he graduated, his cumulative 3.4 grade-point average earned him membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor fraternity, and he delivered the commencement speech for the class of 1940. Nile was the leading vote-getter in the nation for the annual college all-star game against the NFL champions. The Green Bay Packers won, 45-28, but Nile did not let down his fans, many of whom attended the game primarily because he was in it. He scored 2 touchdowns and drop-kicked 4 extra points. The all-stars scored all 4 touchdowns while he was in the game.

After the 1939 season, Nile won virtually every major award that intercollegiate football bestowed, including the Heisman Trophy, college football’s most prestigious award. He also ruled over baseball’s Joe DiMaggio, boxing great Joe Louis, and legendary golfer Byron Nelson as the Associated Press’s male athlete of the year.

During the same 1939 autumn in which Nile excelled on the football field, Germany invaded Poland, launching World War II. After Nile graduated, he spent one year in law school and then enlisted in the Naval Air Reserve. On December 4, 1941, three days before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, he was called to duty. He visited Adel one last time in 1942 and said goodbye to his greatest fan, his father, who would outlive both him and his athletic brother Ben by almost a half-century.

On June 2, 1943, Nile flew in a routine training flight from the deck of the carrier USS Lexington, which was sailing in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela. Because his plane developed a serious oil leak, he was not allowed to land it on the carrier. Instead, he made what appeared to be a perfect, wheels-up landing in the water, as he was required to do. He appeared to exit his sinking plane safely, but the rescue party sent to the spot where his plane went done found no trace of him or his plane. He was never seen again.

Summary

Nile Kinnick, Jr., never played professional football, and he had only one truly great college season. Nevertheless, his name has become synonymous with greatness in college sports because of his versatility, drive, and stamina on the field and his all-around excellence in college life. An Iowa sportscaster summed up his accomplishments: “He proved that college sports could be beautiful. Everything that can be said that is good about college athletics he was. He did not represent it. He was it.”

When the college football hall of fame formed in 1951, Nile was among its first inductees. In 1972, the University of Iowa renamed its football stadium after Nile in honor of its only Heisman Trophy winner. The face on the coin tossed by officials to start every Big Ten Conference game is that of Nile, who is also venerated for giving his life in the service of his country at a time when he could have chosen almost any future he desired.

Bibliography

Baender, Paul, ed. A Hero Perished: The Diary and Selected Letters of Nile Kinnick. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.

Fimrite, Ron. “Nile Kinnick: An American Hero.” Sports Illustrated (August 31, 1987): 116-125.

Pennington, Bill. The Heisman: Great American Stories. New York: ReganBooks, 2004.